Darkness and Light
by MioneAlterEgo
Summary: "Sitting there in the light they were unable to see what I could feel in the darkness. It wasn't my mind keeping me alive at all." Hermione's inner monologue as she recovers after the Final Battle.  Now A/U, but still worth a read.


**Author's Note: **Originally written for the Ron/Hermione Quote!Fic Challenge over at Checkmated and published there in 2005. Since it was written before the conclusion of the series it's now A/U, but I still think it's a nice little piece (and since it was my very first published fic it holds a special place in my affections).

**Disclaimer: ** So very, very disclaimed. 

**Quote Prompt: **_"It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death."_ -Thomas Mann

**Darkness and Light**

The sun comes up, and the darkness fades away. Light reigns for a few hours, and then the darkness takes over once again. Life is cyclical, but some things exist only in darkness, and some only in light. Precious few things have value in both.

Books are a good example of this phenomenon. Books are associated with light. You must have light in order to read them, obviously, and the right book will (in turn) enlighten you in some new way. I spent much of my young life immersed in one book or another; I never really paused to consider that these treasured tomes would do very little good at all if I was someday surrounded by darkness.

Darkness is all-consuming. When one is alone, completely surrounded in darkness with no means of light, the world is an altogether different place. Things you've known all your life no longer make sense, no longer seem true. You've always known what your hand looks like, and suddenly—simply because you can no longer see it—you begin to panic. If you spend too much time enveloped in darkness, you start to think that you have never in your life seen a human hand, and wonder if you will ever see yours in the same way again.

Spending a great deal of time in light is educational, but you only see things, and that only from one perspective. Spending a great deal of time in darkness forces you to focus on other senses. You hear things. Feel things. The world takes on a new shape, and over time becomes a very, very different place.

After the Final Battle, I spent quite a long time surrounded in darkness. The healers at St. Mungo's never expected me to live. They thought that at worst I would die, and at best I would never awaken. Even if I did awaken, they decided, I would never be the same person. It's unspeakably maddening to hear people talking about you as if your life is over, and not to be able to respond to them, refute them, tell them they are wrong. For weeks, months, I lay flat on my back in that hospital bed, unable to speak, to move, even to see. It was something akin to floating alone in the ocean in the dead of night, hearing voices all around you and being unable to cry out for help. For weeks, months, people hovered over me, speaking my name and talking about everything that had happened, and how there was very little chance I'd ever recover. _She always was a bright witch_, they'd say, _but even if she wakes, she'll never be the same again. Even __**her**__ mind is no match for the cocktail of curses she was hit with._

Sitting there in the light they were unable to see what I could feel in the darkness. It wasn't my mind keeping me alive at all.

I spent a great deal of time alone in the darkness, hearing them talk over me. They never knew I was listening, or even that I was capable of hearing at all, but all the while I listened for any mention one specific name. Simply hearing his name spoken kept me alive. Hearing his voice, finally, pulled me back into the light.

I heard my parents' voices, felt my dad hold my hand and felt my mum's tears fall and soak a place on the shoulder of my dressing gown. I vaguely recognized the voices of professors, classmates, and Order members as they would drop in to check on me. My attention always perked up at any mention of Harry, Ginny, or Ron.

All three had survived, though in varying degrees of health and wholeness. So much of Harry's magical energy and strength had been sapped in casting that final spell that he still spent several hours a day resting and recovering from that alone, to speak nothing of the various wounds he received from other curses during the siege. Ginny was by his side through it all, and consequently suffered from similar injuries (though most not as severe as Harry's). As soon as they were well enough to do so, both visited me on almost a daily basis. Sometimes they would stay for a few hours, other times only for a few minutes. But I lived for their visits. They always spoke of Ron.

_Ron. _

"You saved him, Hermione. He's going to be all right." "He's a bit better now, starting to stay awake for more than two minutes on end." "Ron had a rough night. Nightmares again. Took three sedative potions and a restraining hex to calm him." "He's trying to communicate now." "He asked for you."

_He asked for you._

At that moment I strained as hard as I could to move in some small way—to twitch an eyelid, lift a finger, wiggle a toe, something, anything, to let them know I'd heard them. _Tell him I'm fine! Tell him I'll be there as soon as I can make my stupid limbs cooperate! Tell him I want to be there with him so much…_ I pushed and strained, focused every ounce of my considerable brain power and concentration, trying to recall everything I'd ever learned of human anatomy and biology, and _willed_ myself to move. I _had_ to get up. I had to go to Ron.

For all my efforts, nothing happened. But then, why would that day have been any different?

I laid there in the darkness after they left, pouring over their words. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to stand and walk down the hall to his room.

I couldn't.

And for that brief moment, for the first time since I'd fallen into the darkness, I honestly wanted to die. What was the point of being alive, after all, if I couldn't really live?

When you're surrounded by daylight, there are so many things to see, so many distractions. When you are completely covered by darkness, suffocating under its weight, the only thing you worry about is surviving. For a few short minutes, I wasn't even fussed with that any more. I lay there pondering my own miserable fate and wondering if it was possible to will myself to die, since I apparently couldn't muster enough will to live properly. But the longer I thought about dying, the less sense it made.

_Ron's alive. He's well enough to remember you, to ask for you. He's worried about you. You owe it to him to at least hang on long enough to still be here when he's finally able to visit. You owe it to him to keep on trying to make a proper recovery._

Reason seemed a feeble voice there in the darkness. As I thought of him, however, I somehow felt stronger, and for a precious moment love, not reason, seemed stronger than death. I wanted desperately to hear his voice, to feel his hands smoothing over my hair, to smell the soap on his skin when he gets out of the bath, to taste his lips against mine, to see that one particular freckle just to the side of his right eye. I even wanted to scream and fight and throw things in a blazing row until we could no longer stand it and threw ourselves at one another again.

On the surface those things seem so silly and inconsequential. Who stays alive out of sheer desire to someday argue with someone else? He drove me absolutely mental, almost from the beginning, and yet it was this madness-the thought of him-that kept me sane, much more than reason ever could.

The next few days were difficult. Though my mind fought to stay strong, my body was growing weaker. I floated in and out of awareness. I was vaguely aware that the healers were becoming more and more concerned. I heard one of them tell Mrs. Weasley that I might pass any day now, but it was like hearing someone speaking from a great distance. Later on, the room went silent. I felt a wave of peace wash over me. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Living sounded nice, but then death sounded all right, too. It just didn't matter, and it seemed the easiest thing in the world at that moment to just let go and float away...

"Hello, Hermione."

Those two words jolted me back to reality. _Hello, Hermione._ It was his voice. He was in my room, only feet away from me. I felt the warmth of his Quidditch-calloused hands covering my own, and everything left in me froze, waiting for his next words.

"They, um… They told me you're not doing too well. They said you'll probably never recover from this. I just… it's… the only thing that kept me alive was the thought of you. You've never given up on anything, ever. You can't give up now." I could hear the tears welling up in his voice, and I could feel my heart tearing apart at his pain. "You have to wake up again, understand? I don't think I could handle being in this life without you."

_Oh God, Ron, don't say that! I want to come back, I WILL come back, I'm trying as hard as I can! _

"You've never given up on anything, Hermione. And I'm not going to give up on you."

He laced his fingers between my own, and I could feel him leaning over me as I lay there. His breath was warm and gentle as it fell across my ear, and his lips tickled as they brushed against my cheek.

"I know you're still in there. And I'm going to find some way to get you back out here. I love you, Hermione Granger, and I'll be damned if I let you get away without a fight."

I felt what I thought were his fingers clenching tighter around my own, until I heard him gasp aloud.

"Are you…? Did you just…? Hermione, listen to me—do that again!"

Do what? I didn't know I'd done anything in the first place! I could hear his breath coming faster now, and I felt the bed shift as he climbed up onto it to kneel next to me.

"Do it again, squeeze my hand again! Or wiggle your thumb or open your eyes or do _something_!"

It felt as if something very heavy was pushing against my ribcage from the inside. I was trying harder than I'd ever tried before to do this one thing, this one tiny, simple thing for him. A few long moments passed; nothing happened. I felt the bed shift again, and felt his forehead rest against mine. His beautiful hair was tickling my forehead, his nose nudging against my own. He sighed in resignation, and I wanted to scream.

"It's all right, Hermione. We'll try again tomorrow, yeah?"

But he didn't move. His head was still resting against mine, our fingers intertwined, and I could feel the warm weight of his body hovering over me. We remained there, perfectly still for a few long moments. I could feel the emotion pouring off of him, and just as it seemed he was about to move again, I opened my eyes.

_I opened my eyes._

Light flooded in, blinding in its intensity after so long in the dark, and the look of shock that overtook Ron's face at that moment is something I will never forget.

"Hermione? Oh God, you're… HERMIONE!" He was shouting now, almost falling backwards off the bed as he clambered off of me. "Don't— Don't go anywhere! I'll just… MUM, DAD, HARRY, GET IN HERE!"

Faces I hadn't seen in ages came pouring into the room. There were new faces, too, of healers and medi-witches whose voices I already knew from their months of watching over me. Every face was confused and frightened at first; if Ron was in my room, shouting for someone to get in there, it couldn't possibly be good. But with each passing moment, as everyone began to realize what was happening, the looks of fear were replaced with shouts of joy. I couldn't force my facial muscles to respond at all, so smiling was out of the question, but when I managed to blink twice ("Blink twice if you know who I am!") you would have thought that no one in the room had ever seen anything quite so extraordinary or wonderful in their whole lives.

Mrs. Weasley was in tears. Mr. Weasley ran out almost immediately to find a telephone to contact my parents. One of the older healers had apparently been so surprised that she practically fell into a chair near the door as she signaled into the hallway for the other healers to come see. Harry and Ginny were ecstatic, leaning over my bed and talking so quickly that I could hardly make out what they were saying. But the expressions on their faces and the joy in their voices were unmistakable. Harry was smiling the most genuine smile I'd seen on him in a long time, and Ginny kept swiping tears off her cheeks as she laughed aloud.

And then there was Ron. He'd somehow managed to climb back onto the bed next to me (despite vehement protests from almost every healer in the room) and was holding my hand and staring into my eyes. He didn't say much except to recount to the assembled healers what had happened, but every time he looked down at me, his face absolutely lit up.

I lived in the darkness for so long that I'd started to wonder if there really was such a thing as light at all. Now that I'm back in the light, I never want to be in the darkness ever again.

I still cannot move my body. Goodness only knows how I managed to squeeze Ron's hand. I have only minimal control of the muscles in my face. It took me weeks of practicing alone at night—once they'd all been kicked out and Ron had fallen asleep—to be able to whisper "I love you" to him. I'm not "well" yet. There's still a long way to go for that. But the light in his eyes when he heard me say those two words… that is enough. For now, I will live in that light.


End file.
